


Incident Report

by justanotherStonyfan



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:11:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything would have been fine if Fury had just let them sleep before the debrief, but no, that would be too easy. But Super-Soldiers need their sleep, and problems are caused when they don't get it. Billionaires, though...they hardly need to sleep at all, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incident Report

Tony Stark loved the sound of his own voice, it was a well-known fact. He loved a lot about himself, actually, and if people hadn't spent the majority of their time letting him know, he would have said it himself. There was a lot to be proud of, that was for sure, and his turn of phrase, his sharp wit and his intelligence were the kind of conversation he wished he could get from someone else.

But even Tony couldn't be bothered to open his mouth any more.

Three days and one really nasty biological weapon neutralization later, and they were all sitting around the conference table aboard the helicarrier.

And if Tony Stark loved the sound of his own voice, Nick Fury was practically having children with his.

He droned on and on and on and Natasha heard everything whether she was paying attention or not. Clint didn't need to pay attention because Natasha would. Bruce had been excused on account of his tiredness making him irritable – and irritable was not the most intelligent thing to make Bruce – and Thor had gone before they'd even met up for the debrief. Hell, even Captain Kiss-Ass himself was looking like he'd rather be anywhere but right where he was.

And somehow, the debrief had turned into a brief for a new, potential, probably-won't-happen-but-we-should-always-be-prepared mission. 

Tony wanted out. Or he wanted entertainment. It was easier to get the latter, so he went searching the internet on his Starkphone – which had full reception even miles above New York, thank you – and looking up the various schematics for the nextgen phone. As it was, the one he was using was two ahead but a little foresight couldn't hurt.

“Captain?” Fury asked, and Tony glanced up from his phone to look at Steve. “Is that acceptable?” 

Steve stared at the display Fury had been pointing to and then slowly looked at Fury.

“It seems like an intelligent strategy,” he said. “Although I'd like to review it once I've had a little sleep.”

For one long moment, everybody wondered if Fury would get the hint. But if he got it, he didn't take it. In fact, he ignored it completely.

“Then let's move on,” he said, and Tony heard Steve sigh, saw Clint roll his eyes, before he was going back to his schematics.

He spared a glance for Steve a few seconds later, and did a double take. 

Steve actually looked ill. Like, really ill – his skin was white and there were huge, dark marks under his eyes. His mouth was open, like he was finding it hard to breathe, and the whites of his eyes were more sort of...pink. They were watery under his lashes – which Tony only noticed because his eyes were half closed. Yeah, they all needed sleep.

Steve's head rocked forward a little, as though he agreed with Fury, and then again maybe ten seconds later, and it was only about the fifth time that he made the odd, jerky movement that Tony realized he was falling asleep.

Steve seemed to realize, too, shutting his eyes for a moment to run his hand across them as he shook his head, squeezing them tightly closed before he opened them again, and he set his elbow on the edge of the table after a second or two, resting his head on his chin. And who would have thought? Captain America looking tired and bored.

It couldn't have been five minutes later that Fury brought up another screen, this time on the advantages of training somewhere else, in an actual city, to maybe cause a little less collateral damage – and Tony was just about to argue that, actually, it was the bad guys who usually caused the damage, when a spectacularly loud BANG made everybody jump, Fury included.

They all turned to look at the direction the noise had come from – which was right at Steve, as it turned out, and Steve made a noise like a wounded whale, head down, hands clasped over his face.

Tony should not have laughed. 

He should have kept a straight face and said nothing, but they were all so tired that everything was funny, so tired that everything had the potential to be side-splitting, so tired that Tony wouldn't have been surprised if he'd thought of a heart-attack and laughed at that, too. So the knowledge that Captain America had been so exhausted that his elbow had slipped off the edge of the table was absolutely hilarious.

So Tony laughed.

Steve leaned forward a little more, and a little more, until his head was almost in his lap, and Tony slapped the table he was laughing so hard, barely able to breathe.

Everybody else was staring in a kind of shocked silence, and Tony might have tried to make a joke were it not for the fact that Steve chose that moment to lift his head again, tipping it back with another moan.

And then he pulled his hands away and Tony's laughter died on his lips.

Blood, dark and red and flowing like a damned river, splattered down the front of Steve's suit as soon as his hands weren't there to stem the flow, his fingers glittering with it like he'd fallen into red paint. It was streaming from his nose, and his lip, staining his teeth pink, and it dripped off his chin in large, red drops.

Steve looked absolutely furious in the split-second it took him to replace his hand as he stood, the blood seeping through his fingers now, and he didn't bother asking for permission before he turned around and left.

Everybody else seemed as stunned as Tony, staring after Steve in silence wondering what the hell had happened, and Tony sat there for a few seconds. And then he saw the smeared red spots on the floor where Steve had been sitting, and the line of drops that marked Steve's path out of the room.

And he pushed himself out of his chair to follow.

~

Steve was half blind with pain. 

His nose was broken, he'd felt the cartilage shift under his palm when he'd tried to stem the flow of blood and once he'd let the pressure off, the pain had really started – thick and sharp and driving right into the back of his skull and if his eyes weren't streaming by now then they would be soon. He couldn't put the pressure back, either, because it hurt too much to try, so now he was just shielding his face from the horrified stares of the agents who moved back to get out of his way. 

“Steve!” 

Oh just brilliant. Just absolutely fantastic, if there was one person he did not need, it was Tony Stark.

And he'd have said as much if he'd been able to breathe properly to take a breath to speak. Instead, he plowed on, head down, shoulders hunched, blood dripping through his fingers like a goddamn faucet and where the hell was medical from here, which way in the maze of gray and black was he supposed to turn to get help?

“Dammit, Steve, stop!”

He dropped his hand for a second to flick away the blood – heard it splatter too – and somebody muttered 'Jesus' but Steve could barely see anyway and so wasn't about to stop to find out who it was.

“Medical!” he tried to ask, but it came out “Bedirgal,” and he doubted that was effective at all, especially once he stumbled into the wall and jarred his hand into his nose again. “Ow!”

“Christ, Steve, stand still, you're going the wrong way!”

He could hear Tony's footsteps coming towards him, faster than usual so he must be jogging, and somebody else put it together and drew a logical, if incorrect, conclusion. “Stay away from him, Stark, you've done enough.”

“I couldn't make a dent if I tried, get out of my way!” Tony's voice responded, and then the cream and red colored blur of everybody's-favorite-troublemaker appeared in front of him, a warm hand on his shoulder. “Steve, God, Steve...”

Steve's head was pounding and the florescent lights weren't helping and he tried to shake his head but it made the corridor sway.

“Geddaway frob be,” he answered, but the blur of Tony visibly shook his head.

“Keep your head forward, Cap,” he said, his voice low and harsh, and he was turning Steve around, walking by his side with one hand sliding to rest between his shoulderblades before it was moving again, rubbing softly. “Forward, not back.”

“Geddoff!” Steve said, even though he wasn't sure he meant it quite as much.

“Can you pinch it?” Tony said. “Just under the-”

“Doh!”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Tony muttered, easing him forward. “Fine, you need to go to medical.”

Steve could have kicked him. Should have kicked him. Instead he snorted and oh hell was that a bad decision, the moan he gave a moment later causing nothing but pain.

“It's okay. It's okay, hang a right, you missed the turn before,” Tony said, and then Steve was being guided around a corner and more dark blurs startled enough to stare. “Make a hole!” Tony said angrily, and at least people did.

Steve hated the taste of the blood, hated the way it felt on his hands and the way it was sticking his shirt to his chest, and Tony seemed to notice.

“God, Steve, that's a lot of blood, the hell were you thinking running off?”

“Gyu're the wad who blaghed,” Steve answered, and Tony tucked himself against Steve's side, one hand still rubbing between Steve's shoulder blades while the other hand came to rest on his elbow to keep him going in the right direction.

“I know, I wouldn't have laughed if I'd known, I thought it was your hand or something, not your goddamn face.”

They took step by step, rushing without jarring him any more – at least, not too much – and the blood in his mouth made him want to spit and snort until he could be sure he wouldn't choke on it.

“Here, here Steve, we're here,” Tony said, sounding pretty panicked actually, and Steve sort of hobbled through the doorway. “Little help?”

“Oh my God, Captain Rogers!” somebody said, and Steve didn't care who it was – the only thing that mattered was that somebody else was guiding him forwards, out of Tony's hands, and he forced down the mild sense of panic that accompanied that. “Stark, what the hell did you do-”

“I punched him in the face for being old,” Tony answered, completely deadpan. “Kick my ass later, deal with him now.”

And what the hell? Still, it was faster than explaining, Steve supposed.

“Get the hell out-”

“Deal with Steve,” Tony growled, “and I'll leave when I Goddamn please!”

And then Steve was being led away to sit down on the end of a bed, and somebody drew a curtain, and then he couldn't see Tony's blur anymore.

~

“Why the hell would you punch him in the face?”

“I didn't punch him in the face.”

“That's not what you said before.”

“Well maybe if you'd been more interested in treatment than backstory, I wouldn't have needed to lie to get you to concentrate on him.”

“And you think we'd place your explanation over the Captain's safety?”

“I think you already did. He fell asleep in the briefing. We were all falling asleep in the briefing and he went first. What the hell do you think I could do to him-”

“Break his nose, maybe?”

“Not out of the suit. Out of the suit, he'd break my hand before I even got close – or my neck – and you know it. Stop blaming me for an accident and tell me how he is.”

“He's going to need to stay awake for a while, and his nose is broken, and there'll be bruising. You can talk to him if you want but don't blame me when he breaks your fingers.”

“Don't get your scrubs in a twist.”

And then the relative darkness was split down the middle with a hiss of the curtains, in a wide strip of light with a Tony-shaped silhouette standing there.

“Still awake?” he asked, and Steve squinted at him.

From what Steve could tell, there was a bandage over his nose (which he could see, and it was starting to make him go cross-eyed) and maybe a couple of bits of something on and around various places, like his eyebrow, that felt restricted.

“Wow, look at you,” Tony said, and he didn't sound like he was pretending to be impressed, or like he was waiting to laugh. Actually, he sounded like he was just happy to see Steve, but Steve took that to mean 'you look really bad.'

“That good, huh?” Steve asked, his voice still thick as he scrubbed his eye – the good eye, the one that didn't feel like it had been jabbed backwards into the socket – with the heel of his hand.

“They give you a mirror yet?” 

And Steve looked at him.

“No?” he said, trying not to wince because it would only hurt more.

The corner of Tony's mouth twitched upwards a little. “Here,” he said, producing a small compact from out of nowhere, and Steve had seen him do that before, seen him made up to look better than he was.

Steve had considered it vanity to start with but, as time wore on, he'd noticed what it was really for – concealing bruises, covering small cuts – and Steve knew the reason why; as the head of a multi-billion-dollar company, Tony had to look his best because the board would jump on any excuse to make life hell for him – 'you might have just saved the world but you don't look like you're in any state to handle this' included. He did it less now Miss Potts was in charge, apparently, but he still did it, and Steve had long ago stopped judging him for it.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, reaching out to take it, and then he actually saw himself. “Oh wow.”

His nose was, yeah, broken. Not obviously but it had been reset (and that had hurt) and he knew there was a beautiful slice right into the bridge of his nose to show where he'd hit the edge of the table with his face, not to mention the stippled bruising/scraping around the wound, covered by a white bandage that wasn't as much of a contrast against his skin as it should have been. There was a little piece of white tape through his left eyebrow, too and, under his left eye, there was a long purple-black smudge, as though someone had followed the lower inside of his eye-socket with boot polish. 

Then there were the identical splits in his upper and lower lip, more towards the left than the right and he didn't even know how he'd managed that.

The nursing staff had cleaned his face as best they could but their job was to minimize discomfort as well as injury so, once the bleeding had stopped, they'd cleaned what they could comfortably clean and left the rest, so dark, rust-colored stains marred his nostrils and the creases in his lips, as well as sticking in some strange places down his chin and his throat.

He'd been given a small bowl of water to wash his hands in, thank God; they'd already been getting sticky by the time he was told to take off his shirt, and the one they'd replaced it with – another white SHIELD issue thing – was better than nothing.

He examined his face for a moment or two. Nothing that wouldn't heal by tomorrow or, at most, the day after. 

“Thanks,” he said again, handing the compact back to Tony who...made it disappear again somehow, Steve's brain wasn't working fast enough to figure it out. Not with the headache that was centered in the middle of his face.

But he could think enough to notice Tony wasn't smiling at all, rose-colored spectacles perched on his nose.

“How d'you feel?” Tony said, and Steve shrugged.

“Headache,” he answered. “Thick, too. Like I have a cold.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, you will do. I presume you know that but...yeah. So you're not allowed to sleep.”

Steve felt his eyes go wide. “I'm what?” he said. “Why?” After everything they'd been through, Fury couldn't want them back for the rest of the debrief, surely. The man had to know when he'd gone too far.

Although not necessarily. Fury's track record with that wasn't great. Still, a member of your first-response team smashes their face open on a table because they're so tired would usually be a sign to let it go, at least for now.

“Concussion,” Tony says. “Far as we can tell, you don't have one, but it's standard procedure.”

Steve groaned, hanging his head. “But I'm so tired,” he whispered, and he didn't really intend for Tony to hear it. Except that Tony obviously did.

“We're all tired,” he said. “Then again, not all of us got so closely acquainted with the table...” And there was the humor, here came the jokes, joy of joys. “Good news is you're...what, four times faster than us?”

“Something like that,” Steve muttered, scrubbing his hands up his upper arms. 

“Yeah, so if I took a nosedive into the furniture, I'd be up for twenty-four hours.”

“Please, God, no,” Steve groaned, and Tony chuckled lightly.

“You, Mr Four-Times-Faster, only need to last six. Okay? Then you can pass out and sleep to your heart's content.”

Steve tipped his head back and sighed through his mouth because his nose was likely to be blocked for a while. “Six hours,” he said. “And are they planning to give me any adrenalin for this or...?”

Tony actually did smile then, and Steve felt better for it. If Tony was smiling, things couldn't be all that bad. “I run on coffee,” he said, “don't make me go Pulp Fiction on you.”

“Sure,” Steve said, with absolutely no idea what Tony was talking about, “coffee's good.”

“Yeah, it is, but my point is I'm up for days on end. This is nothing new to me. So if you want company, I can stay.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and his left protested the movement. “Ow,” he said. “Are you sure? You don't have a...meeting or something to get to?”

Tony shrugged. “When have I ever let that stop me?” he said, holding out a hand. “We'll go back to your quarters and play cards. Yeah?”

“Sure,” Steve sighed, taking Tony's hand as he stood gingerly. 

It didn't hurt too much but it still made his head throb, and he felt Tony's grip on his hand tighten momentarily as he swayed before Tony trusted him enough to let go.

“You good?” he asked, and Steve nodded, raising one hand to his face out of instinct, only just remembering not to pinch his nose in the nick of time.

~

Tony had no idea what to do. 

By the time they were bored of cards, it had been three hours and two pots of coffee from the hilariously low-tech SHIELD issue coffee-machine that, for some reason, sat in the corner of the SHIELD issue quarters that, for some other reason, Steve had been provided with. And there'd been no clear resolution to the card games. Two out of three became three out of five became four out of seven and they kept winning and losing in the same amounts. 

By the time they were playing for the nine out of seventeen, they were both hoping to lose and Tony tossed his cards at the table to make his point. “I am officially bored of this distraction,” he said. “We keep playing, I'm going to fall asleep.”

Steve chuckled, stifling a yawn, and he shrugged lightly. He suggested reading, or a movie, but both of those could end in him accidentally falling asleep and those plans were abandoned.

“Ordinarily I'd go for a run,” he said. “Not that it'd do me much good now.”

“We could go for a walk?” Tony said, not that he particularly wanted to.

The scenery on the helicarrier was pretty much the same everywhere and he didn't want to run the risk of running into Fury again. The last thing either of them wanted was to be cornered for a few hours to talk about nonsense that hadn't even happened yet, or else Steve would drop within about five minutes. And they didn't need another trip to medical. 

“You feel like a walk?” Steve said, stifling another yawn. “Because I feel like a nap. I feel like a coma.”

Tony snorted, looking around the sparse little room. “I don't know if there's anything really- oh!”

Because, wait a second, actually, yeah he did know about something although it was only rumor really. No harm in trying to find out.

Steve frowned at him. “What?”

“Hold on, they have...You do like- yeah, of course you do, stay here and I'll be right back.”

Tony stood up quickly, on his way out of the room before Steve could register what he was doing, and the door shut behind him with a soft snick to leave Steve alone. But it wouldn't be for long.

When Tony came back, he was carrying as many candy bars as he could fit in his hands and various pockets, and Steve's face didn't exactly light up when he dumped them all in the middle of the table but he did a good impression of thinking about it.

“You like candy bars, I remember that much.”

“Where did you get all these?” Steve chuckled, and Tony dropped into his seat with a smirk.

“Vending machines,” he said, and Steve's head snapped up to look at him.

“You're kidding me,” he muttered. “The helicarrier has vending machines?” Steve looked just about as surprised as Tony had been when Clint had mentioned it a few weeks before, but right there was the evidence. 

“Apparently so, and apparently it takes fifties.”

Steve snorted. “You spent fifty dollars on candy bars?”

“Yeah, this isn't all of them, but I couldn't carry all of them and there were hungry agents milling around and I figured being generous was easier than strapping candy bars to my chest. So dig in!”

Steve looked down at the multitude of colored wrappers and shook his head.

“Uh...” he said, and Tony grabbed a Baby Ruth and started on it immediately. 

“Come on, pick one. Or close your eyes and grab one, there's plenty.”

Steve still looked mildly bemused, although he also seemed just about as pleased as he was likely to given that he looked like he'd...

Well, he looked like he'd smashed face-first into a table. 

He picked up a Hershey's bar, and Tony couldn't blame him for going with something simple – hell, Hershey's was established...what, late 1800s, like 1890s or something? So a Hershey's bar was probably something Steve had had before. 

“I remember these,” Steve said and yeah, there you go.

“Recipe's probably changed.”

“Doesn't matter, been years since I tasted one and I never got a whole one to myself,” Steve whispered, and he started eating, too. “The name. It's a comfort thing.”

Tony watched him for a few seconds, nodding slowly. “Right,” he said.

“Although Natasha said something about...uh, Reese's pieces?”

Tony laughed through a mouthful of chocolate. “Yeah, they're like the cups but more portable. You like peanut butter, right?”

“Honestly, in this century? I'm pretty sure I like everything,” Steve mumbled. “Peanut butter, cotton candy, the jelly beans oh my goodness.”

“You like the jelly beans?”

“I like everything,” Steve answered. “Gimme candy and I'm good.”

Tony tipped his head back to laugh.

“I'll remember that,” he said and, when he looked back, Steve was just kind of staring at him. 

And Tony kind of liked that.

~

At the five hour mark, when they'd started playing cards again for the candy bars, Steve looked worse than ever. Of course his face was going to swell up before it went down but wow. He really looked like the damage had been done deliberately. And if it weren't such a certainly that he'd heal within a day or two, Tony might never have let him leave medical.

“Why'd you tell the nurse you punched me?” he said, his voice low, and Tony hadn't been expecting that.

“Oh,” he said. “Well I don't know how well you were doing on your scenic route to medical, but pretty much everybody wanted to blame me for whatever they thought happened to your face. Which is fine, I'm used to doing that, it's no big deal but they were in the way and it was easier to lie and explain later than stop every single time and waste time. I know, I know, you heal fast but there was a lot of blood and you were walking into stuff and going the wrong way and-”

“Yeah,” Steve murmured, “thanks.”

Tony frowned at him.

“Uh, yeah, sure. So, uh...yeah.”

From the look on Steve's face, he'd been about to raise his eyebrow but decided better of it. And then he yawned, again.

“Look,” Tony said quietly, “finish your candy bar and sleep, okay?”

Steve crumpled the wrapper up theatrically. “And what about the concussion thing?”

“You've got...what, an hour? Get into bed, I'm not going anywhere, I'll keep an eye on you.”

Steve narrowed his eyes a little, looking back over his shoulder at the bed. And then he looked back at Tony.

“You sure?” he said. “It's not exactly fun and games sitting around watching me for an hour.”

Tony smiled a little, dropping Steve's gaze deliberately. “There are worse things I could do,” he answered. “And it's not so bad keeping an eye on you if it's gonna keep you safe, y'know?”

Tony saw, on the edge of his vision, Steve look at him, really look at him. And, just for a second, Steve's hand moved on the table, twitching towards Tony's. And then he drew it back and looked at the bed again.

“You sure?” he said, and Tony could tell from the sound of his voice that he was biting his lip.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Tony actually made eye contact when Steve looked back at him and, despite the multitude of marks over his face – and the way they looked worse every time Tony saw them – Steve was smiling at him. Smiling warmly at him, and that did something funny in Tony's chest the way watching him bleed all over his suit had done something painful in Tony's chest, and the way watching him kick ass before they'd made it back had done something indescribable in Tony's chest.

Steve stood up and turned around, and Tony followed him because...he was following him.

“You good?” Steve asked, sitting down on the edge of the 'bed' – although it was closer to a cot than a bed – and Tony kind of stopped short in front of him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm gonna sit here and watch you breathe.”

Steve toed off his shoes. “Yeah, 'cause that's not creepy at all,” he grinned, swinging his legs up onto the cot to lie down.

Tony sat down, too, on the edge of the bed because there wasn't a chair, and then he held out a hand as Steve rolled onto his back. “Ah-ah-ah; on your side. Don't choke.”

“I have broken my nose before-” Steve began, but Tony cut him off.

“Hey, I'm on Steve duty, and I say you're gonna lie on your side.”

Steve's grin widened. “Fine, fine,” he said, rolling onto his side away from Tony and...Tony refused to feel disappointed that Steve wasn't going to be facing him, that he wasn't going to get to see sleeping-Steve's face. 

And when he remembered a few seconds later something that Steve had said weeks before about 'never sleeping with his back to someone,' he did his absolute best not to smile like a besotted teenager. Evidently 'someone' meant 'someone he didn't trust,' which meant he trusted Tony.

“Ugh, my head,” Steve muttered thickly, his words already slurring together.

Tony narrowed his eyes at the back of Steve's head, and then he shifted a little closer. He knew intimately how headaches could be, how bad they could get, and he'd had at least one of every kind – from hangovers to the flu, kidnappings to surgery, and sometimes just plain old getting-tossed-into-a-car. And he'd spent enough time with his own hands, and other people's, on his head to know it could help. Especially for a guy who couldn't take painkillers to dull the ache. 

“Come here,” Tony said, sliding his hand between Steve's head and the pillow, using the other to stroke his hair back from his face and, ordinarily, Steve might freeze, might pull away and glare and ask what on Earth Tony thought he was doing. Instead, he tipped his head back just a little and sighed softly. “Okay?” Tony asked cautiously, flexing his fingers in Steve's blonde hair.

“Mmmgh,” Steve answered, nose too blocked to let him hum, and Tony kept stroking his hair back until his breathing evened out.

Once Steve was really asleep – and Tony could tell because he was snoring hilariously because of how stuffed-up his airways were – Tony drew his hands back as slowly as he could manage. He wouldn't usually have taken that much care but Steve's head was fragile enough right now without Tony jostling it out of selfishness. 

And then he sat back in his chair and sighed, pulling out his phone. It would only be an hour, just an hour that he needed to stay where he was, one hour and then he'd know Steve was fine.

And if Tony lost track of time along the way and ended up staying for the rest of the day, what did it matter? Steve was asleep and breathing. And if anybody asked, it would be easy enough to convince them - Tony Stark was always awake for days, Tony Stark always lost track of time. It wasn't like it meant anything.

Which was almost enough to convince Tony, too.


End file.
